Kent County bicycle trails have some gaps but offer long rides

Grand Rapids Press File PhotoFriendly trails: Local officials receive a League of American Bicyclists award honoring Grand Rapids as a "bicycle-friendly community" at the Kent Trails trailhead near Butterworth Avenue SW in October 2009.

Editor’s note: Beginning today through Saturday, The Press will report on the 20th annual Michigander Bike Tour that rolls along many of the trails in West Michigan. Here’s a look at how complete the trails in the Grand Rapids area are and what remains to be done.

GRAND RAPIDS — Were Grand Rapids ever to relinquish its Furniture City title, it might find a suitable substitute: Trail Town, one it could wear with pride.

Trails run like spokes out from the city’s core, offering bicyclists numerous long-distance rides.

Most are along scenic abandoned rail corridors, and several are ready to ride. Others have ridable segments and portions under construction. Still others are on the drawing board. But area officials say they can envision a day when most of them are connected.

“Kent Trails was rebuilt completely in 2009, and we widened it to 10 feet,” Kent County Parks Director Roger Sabine said about the area’s oldest paved trail, which opened in 1992.

The popular 15-mile route connects John Ball Park in Grand Rapids with Byron Center, taking riders along the Grand River and through adjoining communities.

Kent Trails hooks up with the Millennium Park trail system as well as the Buck Creek Trail, which provides a route out to Kent County’s Palmer Park.

Picnic anyone?

Kent Trails also is a core trail that eventually will link north and south.

On its southern end, it hooks up with the Fred Meijer M-6 Trail, a connector to the incomplete Paul Henry Thornapple Trail. When finished, that trail will provide a 28-mile route from Kentwood to Vermontville in Eaton County, passing through farmlands and quaint communities with regular views of the Thornapple River.

“Most of the Fred Meijer M-6 trail is ridable,” Sabine said. “There are some road and sidewalk riding sections, too.”

He said the route lacks only a short connection to the Paul Henry Trail, between 60th and 76th streets, but his department was “working on acquiring the real estate.”

The Paul Henry Thornapple Trail offers about 10 miles of riding today, according to Phil Van Noord, a Middleville resident and vice president of the Thornapple Trail Association, the friends group that has been working to get the trail completed.

“There are five paved miles and five more that are open but not paved,” Van Noord said. “The Middleville section is very ridable, about 3.5 miles. That’s the best part of the trail along the Thornapple River.”

North of Grand Rapids is the Fred Meijer White Pine Trail The 93-mile route from Comstock Park to Cadillac is entirely ridable, though not completely paved. It was dedicated in 1995 and runs through 31 communities.

“It’s a fabulous ride once you get to Howard City,” said Paul Yauk, the linear trails manager for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. “You are never on more than a 2 percent grade. Mecosta County is flat as a pancake, but from Reed City to Cadillac is drop-dead gorgeous.”

The White Pine, sometimes called the “grandaddy of trails” in Michigan, was built on a section of the Penn Central Railroad. In total, 43 miles are paved. Fifteen of those were added in 2010 on the northen end from Cadillac south to LeRoy. The 12-mile portion between Reed City and Big Rapids is paved too, as is one mile in Howard City, and 14 miles between Sand Lake and Comstock Park.

“If you have kids, you can ride to Rockford and have a sandwich or ice cream cone. That ride is perfect for a family,” Yauk said.

Riders leaving from Grand Rapids can stage a car at Riverside Park, where they can pick up the connecting trail that takes them over the river and past Fifth Third Ball Park, then over West River Drive on the bicycle bridge. From there is just a few more miles to Rockford.

Long-range plans call for eventually connecting that trail with Kent Trails to the south. Portions of the connector, called the Grand River Edges Trail, are complete. The planned route between Kent Trails and the White Pine will run along both sides of the river.

Another proposed connector that has riding enthusiasts excited is the planned route between the White Pine and Musketawa trails.

The Musketawa is a 26-mile paved trail running from Marne to Muskegon. It is the main artery riders use to reach the lakeshore. There, they pick up local Muskegon trails that connect to others headed north that let them eventually ride north to Hart on the Fred Meijer Berry Junction Trail, which links with the Hart-Montague Trail.

The connection between the Musketawa and White Pine will be 7.5 miles long when finished, according to Sabine.

“The route has been approved and we are in the process of building it,” he said. “Phase One (of four) is out for bids right now. We should see construction on that later this year.

“By the end of the 2012 construction season, we should have it all complete.”